Sunday, November 21, 2010

Watch the above video starting from 3:28 on through. Pay special attention to what Ron MacLean has to say about the Colin Campbell situation. Now read this fantastic article from our very own Qris. Ron MacLean gets it. The biggest issue in this whole Campbell controversy is not Campbell calling Marc Savard a "little fake artist," though that is also completely inappropriate. The biggest issue is the head of NHL discipline speaking to an employee about situations involving his son. It's an abuse of position and, as Ron MacLean says, "it's a conflict of interest."

We at Pass it to Bulis have been pointing this out from the beginning: there is a bigger issue here than Marc Savard. Most of the mainstream media have been asking the wrong questions. Last night on the Hockey Night in Canada Hotstove, Ron MacLean asked the right ones.

That said, the people calling for his resignation... won't know if they won. They won't know for a while.

If the NHL were to decide that Colin Campbell shouldn't have the job he does anymore, what they'll do is monitor him very closely, have a conversation with him that makes it clear that others are going to be more involved unofficially, and then bide their time till this particular turd of a story has passed through the collective sphincter of our minds. Then, Campbell will either move to a different job with the NHL, or accept a job working with a team. However, the NHL would never openly admit that they cared about this story, because to do so would be to admit that Campbell had done something wrong, which leads to all sorts of bad questions.

It's very telling that Campbell has been going around doing interviews, and also that he's so inarticulate. The interviews aren't killing the story like they should. If this story keeps up, then it'll come up again and again whenever Campbell does something controversial, which the NHL won't accept. So they'll wait a bit, then have him do something else.

In other words, it's possible that the people calling for his resignation have already won.

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